Oy, it should not be this hard, finding something decent to drink at a Passover seder.
This year, as we have for many years now, we are spending the first night of Passover at a seder at my cousins' home in Alamo, a suburb in the east bay of San Francisco. I grew up at her mother's seder table in Westchester, which is near the LA airport. My aunt Rose was the Queen of Passover; her daughter Donna has taken over the crown. When our children were young, we either had Passover here at our house or at our synagogue, sometimes we did both. But now all of our children are living in northern California, so we travel to spend the holiday with them. I try to get there a day early to help with the cooking; we bring the wine.
You would think that since we live in California, finding a decent kosher wine at our price point, which admittedly is not high, would not be hard. The Kosher Wine Guy has a 3 page, single spaced, list on his web site. But many of those are imports from Israel, France, and even South America; this is not a good thing in California. And again, we are not looking for anything expensive since we are a) not those people and b) bringing wine for the entire mishpochah (family). I knew that if we did not start our search last weekend we could be stuck with the standby from childhood, the familiar sticky sweet Manishevitz.
Last year I had had some success at Whole Foods, a lovely red from Argentina if I recall, so last Saturday we took a field trip over there. To my dismay they had only two kosher wines on the shelves, one a white (which we prefer not to drink with brisket) and only one red, which did not look like anything we wanted to buy and try. The wine guy was not there, and nobody had any idea if anything else had been ordered. Strike 1.
Next stop: Bristol Farms. On our way I stopped at Staples to purchase some boxes, and suggested that David check out BevMo next door. Just like last year, they had only the Manishevitz (see above). Bristol Farms looked more promising. They had several choices, including an $85.00 a bottle of cabernet from oh who knows, we weren't interested. We did pick out two bottles to take home to try out, one from Israel and one from France. They were not on my 3 page list from the Kosher Wine Guy, although others from their vineyards were.
We went home, we tasted, and you know, we did not like either one very much. And this was probably not a bad thing, because I knew I would have to get the Bristol Farms wine guy to hunt down bottles from their other stores, as they seemed to only have one of each varietal.
Onto plan B, which was to stop by Trader Joe's after work the next day, where, I knew, I could probably put my hands onto a few choices by Baron Herzog. We have had wines from this winery before, they are quite drinkable, and affordable. Trader Joes had actually labeled the shelf with a blue 'kosher' sign next to the bottle. They carred two bottles, both by Baron Herzog, one a cab and the other a merlot. I remembered that last year the cab was better, so I decided to only buy that one for a tasting (by this point we were several bottles into the undrinkable game).
We tasted, it was ok, so I went back later and bought 6 bottles (we probably need less this year, since one young cousin is nursing a baby, another is newly pregnant and several have to travel home after dinner - the curse of the midweek holiday). Last night I noticed that this wine was mentioned in a Passover menu in Sunset magazine. So we'll be ok.
So ends my adventure in kosher wine hunting, circa 2009. I know that I could make a journey across town where there are actually kosher markets, bakeries and a larger selection at Wally's Wine World. Or, I could, as Marian and Kim suggested last year, just move to New Jersey. I like to think that someday I can buy locally.
Comments (6)
Glad that I have been assigned a side dish and a dessert, and not wine! There is NO Kosher wine in So. Philadelphia! Taking the car in to Center City is a PIA. Happy that you found something.
Posted by sheri | April 3, 2009 12:09 PM
Posted on April 3, 2009 12:09
What a hunt! Great find though, Marcia.
Posted by candi | April 3, 2009 2:57 PM
Posted on April 3, 2009 14:57
Silly question of the day - what is it that makes a wine kosher?
Posted by Jerry | April 4, 2009 4:07 AM
Posted on April 4, 2009 04:07
Very interesting! I didn't know it was so hard to find Kosher wine in California...
Posted by Chiocciola | April 19, 2009 1:13 PM
Posted on April 19, 2009 13:13
I am really behind in my blog reading. Next time try Vicente Market at San Vicente & Bundy. They have a really good selection.
Posted by Rhonda | May 21, 2009 4:43 PM
Posted on May 21, 2009 16:43
This is actually a common problem; not only for Californians, but for people all over the US. I found a great site that not only has a HUGE selection of kosher wines, but who's customer service also gives great advice: www.KosherWine.com.
Posted by Bethany | July 22, 2009 9:25 AM
Posted on July 22, 2009 09:25